Bush gave a speach right after we endered Bagdad and said it would take years to finish the job.
This writer is using 20-20 hindsight and making it look like total failure. Well, go back to WWII and look at the thousands of mistakes that were made in both Europe and the Pacific. Look at the tens of thousands who died in those mistakes. They are mistakes now but at the time they were what happens during war. It's not clean and it's not a video game where you know all the moves. It took us more then 5 years to give back control of Japan to Japan and 5 years for the Germans to finally accept the fact that they could vote on their own Gov't and to stop fighting the Americans!
Lets look at a few things the armchair brass all said would happen. First, they all said we would have 5000-10,000 GI's Killed - didn't happen.
Second, they all said we would get slaughtered going house to house fighting - didn't happen. Most of the deaths are from roadside bombs and accidents not fighting hand to hand.
Third, they all said support wouldn't last more then 6 months - support is still 50% two years in !
Look at Iraq in 5-6 years and it will be much better then it is today.
The bottom line is war never happens the way it does on the computer models and the human factor changes every day so hindsight is useless because the next war will be different !
The more I think this one over, the more I'm inclined to agree with you. It's just not a picture-perfect situation. No war is...........and it's just too easy for arm-chair critics to get all cranked up and spew out drivel as though they would have run a "well-oiled machine."
Hindsight being what it is, most of us could run a better Iraq war from where we're sitting now.
I appreciate your comments very much.
Thanks!
Char :)